\u201cTeams with deeper pockets are much more apt to stuff a player who is day-to-day on the IL,\u201d an NL executive said. \u201cVersus small- and mid-market clubs who have to consider the cost. Having a lot of big leaguers on the IL gets expensive.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Yankees spent an MLB-high $75 million on players on their major-league IL last season, according to Spotrac<\/a>. The Mets were fourth, with $60 million, though neither team had as many players on the IL last season as the Orioles (29), who were tied for the second-most in MLB with the Dodgers.<\/p>\n \n When Aaron Judge misses time due to injury, it\u2019s costly to the Yankees on the field and on the balance sheet. (Cary Edmondson \/ Imagn Images)<\/p>\n The Yankees and Mets also tend to have rosters on the older side, which makes the smaller-market Orioles\u2019 appearance on this list more concerning. According to Baseball Reference, which weighs playing time in its calculations, since 2024, the average age of Orioles big-league hitters is 26.8 years old. Over that same stretch, the Yankees\u2019 average age was 28.9 and the Mets\u2019 was 29. (Among their pitchers, all three teams averaged between 30-31 years old as the average age over that span.)<\/p>\n The Dodgers, who have had the oldest average age of MLB hitters in that span, and the game\u2019s biggest payroll, unsurprisingly led the league in days missed on the big-league IL.<\/p>\n Most MLB days lost to IL, 2024-2026<\/p>\n TeamMLB Days Lost 24-26<\/p>\n 3,752<\/p>\n 2,893<\/p>\n 2,845<\/p>\n 2,731<\/p>\n 2,667<\/p>\n 2,549<\/p>\n 2,520<\/p>\n 2,402<\/p>\n 2,339<\/p>\n 2,183<\/p>\n But if it was only that richer, older teams get hurt more, the Dodgers would be on every IL list. They aren\u2019t. In the minor leagues, the Dodgers ranked among the 10 healthiest teams, at least judged by minor-league days missed by players 26 years old and under since 2024.<\/p>\n Why focus on 26 and under in the minor leagues? Some of the same caveats apply in the minor leagues: richer teams are often more apt to sign older minor-league free agents, or even currently hurt and rehabbing older players who didn\u2019t get a major-league deal. As the age of a player goes up, so does the injury risk.<\/p>\n Teams with deeper pockets or who are less risk averse can stash hurt players on the IL as future depth. The Yankees, for example, may be more willing to sign a minor-league pitcher working back from Tommy John surgery, absorbing 250-plus IL days, in hopes of getting a good half-season.<\/p>\n \u201c(The) goal is to ensure you have enough depth to stabilize in the absence of high-performing players,\u201d an American League executive said. \u201cSomething the Dodgers do best in baseball.\u201d<\/p>\n By limiting minor league IL days to players under 26 to try to remove the older free agents, we have a little clearer outlook on how each organization is doing in keeping its young talent healthy. That said, like with in the major leagues, the way organizations use their minor league IL can vary significantly. Regardless, you still have the Yankees, Mets and Orioles in the top five if you limit the scope to players 26 or younger.<\/p>\n It\u2019s important to note that some organizations are more ruthless than others in releasing injured players to save money and trim their IL list down. Still, there\u2019s no prize for the fewest IL days if it doesn\u2019t translate into organizational performance and ultimately wins.<\/p>\n \u201cSome small-market teams look like they have a phenomenal medical staff,\u201d said another AL executive. \u201cIn reality, the organization is just releasing all the broken guys so that they don\u2019t count against that number. It\u2019s wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n Other teams carry those players through the rehab process because they feel it\u2019s the right thing to do or because those players still represent some upside once healthy. Workers comp covers physical therapy, but released rehabbing players can often lose wages unless they\u2019re on guaranteed deals.<\/p>\n Those outside of an organization (and sometimes within it) often place the blame for injuries on an organization\u2019s medical and training staff, but that is often misguided. Multiple people interviewed for this story felt athletic trainers and medical staff often unfairly take the blame for mounting injuries when in reality those people are typically reacting to a preexisting injury. Finger pointing is often the mark of an organization with some internal strife.<\/p>\n Fewest total days lost to IL (entire org.), 2024-2026<\/p>\n TeamSum ORG 24-26<\/p>\n 8,136<\/p>\n 10,049<\/p>\n 10,110<\/p>\n 10,421<\/p>\n 10,767<\/p>\n 10,867<\/p>\n 10,906<\/p>\n 12,456<\/p>\n 12,591<\/p>\n 13,031<\/p>\n Among the organizations with the fewest IL days, only three are in the top 10 of The Athletic\u2019s preseason farm system rankings<\/a> (Mariners, Guardians and Red Sox). Some of the organizations with the fewest IL days are also some of the most data-averse. Both the Angels and Rockies \u2014 who are implementing more analytics this season<\/a> with the hiring of president Paul DePodesta \u2014 are well-documented as organizations who are behind the analytics curve. Why do these things possibly matter?<\/p>\n In the age of advanced analytics and technology, everything in the minor leagues is tracked and measured. And nothing matters more than velocity: how hard can you swing and how hard can you throw? Does chasing bat speed and pitch velocity and shape lead to more injuries?<\/p>\n According to minor league numbers provided by Watch Marquee player development analyst Lance Brozdowski,<\/a> it appears the Yankees swing harder<\/a> than most teams in the minor leagues because of their top-shelf exit velocities, and the Blue Jays do pretty well by the same measures. Both teams also have lots of hurt hitters. Could modern hitting coaching, which often prioritizes bat speed, be contributing to this problem?<\/p>\n MiLB position players younger than 26, IL days lost<\/p>\n The hardest swingers don\u2019t line up exactly with the most injured hitters, and the hardest throwers don\u2019t line up exactly with the most injured pitchers. The Yankees, Mets and Orioles have the most injured pitchers in the minor leagues and don\u2019t throw the hardest, but all three rank among the top 10 in Triple-A Stuff+ leaders. There is no one-to-one correlation on these things, but those organizations being among the leaders in those categories does raise questions.<\/p>\n MiLB pitchers younger than 26, IL days lost<\/p>\n \u201cBat speed and velocity pursuits have downstream effects,\u201d said an AL executive. \u201cBigger, stronger, faster leads to more force generation. The greater the force you apply, the more pressure you create. Pressure eventually breaks things.\u201d<\/p>\n A few years ago, as oblique injuries seemingly swept through the game, one AL organization closely examined their weighted bat program. They talked to players and looked at their strength and conditioning rotational movements. They crunched the numbers to see how their oblique injuries stacked up to the rest of the league. They were just about average. Should they have cared more? Spent more time and resources evaluating their programs in hopes of avoiding one or two more injuries? Would it even have helped? In the end, that organization kept things mostly the same.<\/p>\n The savvy organizations \u2014 regardless of market size \u2014 are constantly evaluating their programs, measuring output and seeking feedback.<\/p>\n \u201cTeams listening to players is critically important and teams do whiff on that,\u201d said another NL executive.\u00a0 \u201cPart of the rehab process is always what players are experiencing and I think teams discount it heavily relative to what they see on scans when it comes to long-term rehabs. They often prioritize scans over symptoms along the way.\u201d<\/p>\n It can vary widely how much teams invest in support staff, sports medicine equipment and the proper personnel to help effectively diagnose little injuries before they become big problems. Workload management has become a buzzy term in professional sports over the past decade but truly monitoring fatigue for injury prevention is more complex than it appears.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not sure any of the MLB teams do workload management as well as it could be done,\u201d said Casey Mulholland, who is a former pitcher and owner of KinectPro Performance training center. \u201cI\u2019d say a handful try really hard and have had some solid buy-in on wearing the sensors.\u201d<\/p>\n Those wearable sensors are meant to track every swing, pitch, lift or movement and give feedback to the organization and player on fatigue. Less than a handful of organizations use the sensors with various degrees of compliance. (As with every weighted bat, ball or even lifting program, players can opt out.)<\/p>\n A few teams have hired people directly to oversee how fatigue is impacting their players. The Chicago Cubs were an early adopter, hiring Mike Sonne as a baseball scientist prior to the 2023 season. Sonne has a PhD in biomechanics and studied muscle fatigue. Other sources mentioned this hire \u2014 and other teams that have followed suit in hiring fatigue-specific personnel \u2014 as being a potentially important step forward for the league in preventing injuries.<\/p>\n But even keeping players from getting fatigued \u2014 which leads to injury \u2014 isn\u2019t always an easy math problem. Compliance is key, but so is avoiding the one-size-fits-all workload for players. If a player wants to get extra throws or swings in, they should be able to. That\u2019s part of what makes who should be accountable for injuries so difficult.<\/p>\n![\"New](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/USATSI_28586351-scaled.jpg\")
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